[Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =For none of us to himself lives, and none of us to himself dies.= How, and wherefore? Is it merely that "_we_" live lives always, necessarily, related _to one another_? He has this in his heart indeed. But he reaches it through the greater, deeper, antecedent truth of our relation _to the Lord_. The Christian is related to his brother-Christian through Christ, not to Christ through his brother, or through the common Organism in which the brethren are "each other's limbs." "_To the Lord_," with absolute directness, with a perfect and wonderful immediateness, each individual Christian is first related. His life and his death are "to others," but through Him. THE MASTER'S claim is eternally first; for it is based direct upon the redeeming work in which He bought us for Himself. [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =For whether we live, to the Lord we live; and whether we be dead (ἀποθνήσκωμεν), to the Lord we are dead;= in the state of the departed, as before, "relation stands." =Alike therefore whether (ἐαν τε οὖν) we be dead, or whether we live, the Lord's we are;= His property, bound first and in everything to His possession. [Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =For to this end Christ both died and lived again,[236] that He might become Lord= (κυριεύσῃ, not κυριεύῃ) =of= us =both dead and living.= Here is the profound truth seen already in earlier passages in the Epistle. We have had it reasoned out, above all in the sixth chapter, in its revelation of the way of Holiness, that our only possible right relations with the Lord are clasped and governed by the fact that to Him we rightly and everlastingly _belong_. There, however, the thought was more of our surrender under His rights. Here it is of the mighty antecedent fact, under which our most absolute surrender is nothing more than the recognition of His indefeasible claim. What the Apostle says here, in this wonderful passage of mingled doctrine and duty, is that, whether or no _we are owning_ our vassalage to Christ, we are nothing if not _de jure_ His vassals. He has not only rescued us, but so rescued us as to buy us for His own. We may be true to the fact in our internal attitude; we may be oblivious of it; but we cannot get away from it. It looks us every hour in the face, whether we respond or not. It will still look us in the face through the endless life to come.